Liberty Bell 7, Gus, Hunt Club and the Atlantic - 1/96

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Soesterberg was very nice, too. Never been there before and the two halls are packed with great aircraft. The halls are relatively small and that has its advantages; it's cosy. But the lighting is minimal. Only spotlights. Baaaaaad for photos! (see first pic) They had a lot of old jets, including some rare ones. They also had a Sikorsky UH-34 so I could take a closer look. The nose of the helicopter is nowhere smoother than mine in 1/96th! haha!

Billy's astronaut is indeed very impressive. Bigger than I thought, lighter than I expected. The 1/33 X-15, SR-71 and B-58 Hustler he brought along are pieces of art, too. Huge and very detailed. We had a nice chat. really nice to meet people you share a hobby with. I also met forum member Diederick den Bakker of Zeist Bouwplaten, who shared some tables with Billy. His fantasy SF-rockets, including a magnificent Tintin rocket in about 1/144 and the Saturn shuttle of Wernher von Braun, were beautiful and very clean builds. Nice to meet two craftsmen of the paper model trade.
People were amazed to find out the models were completely out of paper. (there was a lot of other scale modeling in the halls, wood and plastic, too.)
To remain a bit off topic, here are some of the "better" pictures of the meeting. PK's not present in the pics, since I had to take them but you'll be able to see Billy. (I forgot to take one of Diederick...) The planes (including that beautiful Trimotor) were on another table next to Billy's and Diederick's.)

[merzo]

jealous....!

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Mainly cockpit-based activities took place today. Got some 'glass' in the window panes and I made the pilot. For the windows I used transparent cellophane and a piece of filter sheet out of a Lee lighting filter booklet (LEE #121) for the roof windows. I saw that these were coloured for shading purposes. Then the pilot: the process was easy: I rolled thin.. well, rolls, actually, from 80 grams paper strips (regular thickness copy paper) and cut them to make limbs, a rump and for the head/helmet I used a silicone bead from my collection of cut-open bags of de-humidifying thingies. On a colour picture (of Alan Shepard's splashdown) I could see the crew wore orange overalls. Probably for visibility purposes, I guess. So orange it was. I made the helmet yellow and I used a dab of dark blue for the visor. he now takes the pilot's seat, I want the copilot to look out of the opened window to the situation and the loadmaster in the passenger bay has to kneel at the hatch opening. That's up next, together with the gear/transmission rotor base behind the cockpit.

[jimkrauzlis]

Excellent work and details...I just love the bubble head pilot, that is great improvisition...you know you're a paper modeler when you look at everything around you and think "now how can I possibly use that in one of my builds..."

I just love seeing these updates, this is just such incredible work!

Cheers!
Jim

[luke strawwalker]

Dittos... LUV yer pilot figures... very inventive use of materials!

Later! OL JR

[spacewalker]

Very excelent job. full interior and crew in this scale? thats great!

[Zathros]

Is that Helo your own design? Back in 1982, I had to machine about 10 sets of foot pedals for someone who was restoring some of those by putting a turbine engine in them. That is a superb job, Dude, you are blowing me away with this!

[merzo]

HI PK
And I am called "Perfectionist ".....
Hahaha ... enjoyed the visit. excellent

Merzo

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Heh heh, thanks, guys. That's almost too much. You make me blush. Stop it. :-)
Zathros, the model is a 1/32 kit that is available from an [link removed]. I just made some changes in the paint job.

[willygoat]

That site seems a bit fishy. It has a number of FG models and some others I've seen from other publishers. makes it suspicious when you don't know if they have an agreement to sell other people's models or not.